An ode to joy - train from Hue to Hanoi 10/5

Always book your own train tickets, that’s the personal mantra we will be uttering to ourselves from now on. Because if you don’t, you end up in the two top bunks in a sleeper carriage with three ladies occupying the two lower beds who seem to trying to outdo each other in the volume stakes as if they were all trying to barter for the same chicken carcass. Or something. And they had friends aboard, which was nice for them so we had the three of them and two conductors all hanging out together. Bartering. We’re reasonably sure they were quiet between about 10pm and 4.30am but we were too delirious to confirm. We got off the train at Hanoi station about 5.20, we were met by a travel agent about an hour after arrival and we waited at her office to get the bus to Ha Long Bay.